KMP SAYS
    Relocation of ‘estero’ folk to benefit Ochoa’s bro-in-law

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    CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – The relocation of some 20,000 families along “esteros” in Metro Manila would largely benefit a brother-in-law of Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa who has allegedly cornered government housing projects for them.

    The  Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) secretary general Antonio Flores said  Jose Acuzar, brother-in-law of  Ochoa, is likely to bag the housing project contracts for P10 billion to relocate families living in dangerous areas such as esteros in Metro Manila.

    Flores said that Acuzar’s firm has already been awarded a contract for a housing project in Central Luzon.

    KMP said that Acuzar is chairman of New San Jose Builders and owner of Goldenville Realty and Development Corporation.

    It noted that for a start, the government has already awarded to Acuzar’s firm the conversion of “more than 85 hectares of productive agricultural lands into a relocation site for folk to be evicted from  Barangay Kaybanban in San Jose Del Monte, Bulacan under the National Housing Authority’s (NHA) Towerville 7 project.”

    Malacañang, however, has not offered yet any relocation project for those to be evicted from Metro Manila’s esteros, as it offered instead P18,000 subsidy for each family to enable them to  rent a room somewhere else so that they could be safe at least for this rainy season.

    Some sectors, however, have urged the government to use the P360-million total cost of the subsidy for permanent resettlement instead.

    Press Secretary Edwin Lacierda said Malacañang would stick to the subsidy option to immediately clear eight major waterways in the capital of close to 20,000 families by year-end.

    Flores cited reports that  Acuzar  owned the mansion on Samar Street that served as the headquarters of the “Samar faction” that campaigned for the “Noy-Bi” (Aquino-Binay) tandem during the 2010 elections.

    He also reported that in Barangay Kaybanban in San Jose del Monte, “at least 50 armed private security guards backed by local police personnel were deployed  last week to harass farmers to abandon their area.”

    This, he said, was despite some 85 hectares of the area being covered by the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) and being declared earlier as part of the agrarian reform community in Kaybanban.

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